Psychological discriminators of subjects at different stages of the eating disturbed spectrum

Eating disturbed subjects and dieters completed an interview administered questionnaire covering stress, coping, social support, personality and eating attitudes followed by structured probes. The two groups of subjects reported differences in coping styles, levels of social support and personality traits. Life stress was not found to be significantly different between the two groups. Personality traits made a significant contribution to separating the two groups even after adjusting for eating pathology. The “individual-difference approach” may be more useful in improving our understanding of the aetiology of disturbed eating behaviour and its treatment.